


the good side

by twoheadlights (fizzfic)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: (not dnp), Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Post-Break Up, danisanoverthinker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 08:25:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15945536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fizzfic/pseuds/twoheadlights
Summary: "so many thoughts i wanted to share, but i didn't call because it wouldn't be fair."





	the good side

**Author's Note:**

> (this was rly hard for me to write which is literally one of the biggest reasons it took so long there's a lot of projecting blegh i'm sorry if it's not great also i'm not an experienced angst writer but this was good practice ok i hope u like it anyway bye!!!!!!!!)

**october 2009**

 

“Dan, are we okay?”

“Huh?”

“Us. You and me. Do you think everything’s good between?”

“Of course I do! Why would you say that?”

Silence. Dan has _never_ heard silence this loud before. He wishes she would say something.

“I...Dan, I don’t feel _connected_ to you anymore. I don’t know how else to say it without sounding like a complete bitch, I’m sorry.” Her eyes well up. Dan doesn’t say anything. He waits for her to explain.

But she stays quiet.

-

They’re on a break. Dan spends more and more time watching YouTube - Shane and Charlie and Smosh and Phil, always Phil, he watches and rewatches until he falls asleep with his laptop next to him, and repeat. There’s not much to do anyway - all of his friends have either moved to or are getting ready to move out to go to university. He’s being considerate and letting Erin have her space to think.

He does some thinking too. About whether she’s right. She’d said she felt like they were moving in different directions, and came from different worlds, almost. That she couldn’t deal with Dan deciding to take a gap year and doing God knows what (“making videos? Are you sure, Dan, maybe you should be focusing on doing internships at firms”). There was a lot of things Erin could never deal with. It’s like she...changed. Or maybe he did.

Sometimes when Dan is lying in bed, thinking and overthinking, his phone lights up and his heart beats faster, thinking it’s her, but it’s not. It’s _him_.

_Hey :] i saw your tweets, everything ok? You dont have to tell me but just in case you want to rant some more im here_

He picks up his phone and opens up the messages.

_hi phil yeah no i was just being dramatic but i am sorta going through what might be a break up idk_

-

A week later, Erin is on her knees, begging for things to go back to the way they were, promising that distance wouldn’t change a single thing (things have already changed though), that it doesn’t matter that they’re different people from who they were three years ago, that they could make it work. And Dan...well, Dan just _didn’t feel connected to her anymore_.

 

**september 2010**

 

 _Message from Erin_.

Dan stares at the notification on his phone. He blinks. It hasn’t disappeared. His thumb hovers over it and - he can’t do it. He throws his phone on the bed. Sits down, head in his hands. It’s been a year. Things are different now. He hasn’t been able to face Erin for a _year._  They left things so in the open, and never spoke after officially breaking up and now. Why now?

Suddenly, he feels uneasy. He recalls a time just after the break up when he’d met Phil. Phil, who made him happy. Phil, who was _perfect_. Phil, who showed up and Dan almost forgot about Erin.

He bites his lower lip. He wonders if she’s kept up with him, if she can see what a lot of people can. Can see how Dan looks at Phil, so enamoured. If she knows about Jamaica.

It’s not even like Dan planned on falling in love so soon after falling out of it. Still, he felt guilty. He felt like _shit_. All of that comes back now, with just one notification.

And that’s why he picks up his phone again and swipes it away.

 

**december 2018**

 

As years go, this was decent to say the least.

To say the most, it was Dan’s favourite so far.

Even going back home doesn’t dampen his spirits (and it hasn’t much, recently, but if he had to pick between Phil and extended family he doesn’t even give that much of a shit about for most of the year). But they agree that for once, being apart for two weeks might be good after spending every waking moment together for like, five months on tour. So yeah.

It’s not much different to the other Christmases, but it’s a different Dan returning to Wokingham, a more successful one. A Dan who’s travelled the world with the love of his life, his best friend.

He wakes up on Boxing Day, and Colin is asleep at the foot of his bed. He smiles at him, considers sending Phil a picture. He even saves the picture and posts it on his Instagram story, which is a lot rarer now that tour is over. A little post-Christmas present for the viewers.

-

There’s not a lot to do, really. There never was. But Dan still decides to take a walk into town for once. He puts on earphones and a big coat and leaves, calling out to his mum. He keeps a little notebook too, just in case he’s feeling extra pretentious and he can write in a coffee shop somewhere like in an AU. He knows that it’ll just be a list of things to tell Phil about in detail when he goes back to London.

It feels like a sick joke that he’s thinking about Phil just as his eyes land on a very familiar face.

Even after nine years, Dan could pick out Erin in the most crowded of places. She doesn’t look like her eighteen year old self obviously, but he watches her as she’s on the phone and she laughs and he knows that laugh, can hear it as if she’s right next to him.

Before he can even process, his feet carry him forward, she gets closer and closer. In his head he thinks, _don’t see me, don’t see me_ , maybe he can just walk past her, he pulls up the collar of his coat a little -

“Dan?”

“Shit,” he whispers into his collar. A little louder, he says, “Oh my God, _Erin_?” widening his eyes in faux-shock (wonders if she can tell). “Fancy seeing you here!”

She smiles and shakes her head. “What, during the holidays when everyone who’s moved away is back home to visit the fam?”

He rolls his eyes, mostly at his own stupidity. “Yeah, yeah. So, how are you?”

“I’m good. Hey, it’s cold out here. You wanna get into the cafe that’s so conveniently right across the street from us?”

-

It’s awkward. Of course it is. They order coffee (she takes hers black, that hasn’t changed), and sit in silence for a couple of minutes. Dan fidgets with his jumper and Erin glances at her phone.

“So, how’s L -”

“Any new pr -”

They speak at the same time and laugh. Dan gestures for her to go first. She starts again, “I was going to ask, how’s London? But that feels like a silly out-of-date question, you’ve been there for so long.” She coughs.

“Uh, no, it’s valid,” Dan replies. “London is...great. It’s home, you know?”

She nods. “I do. I stayed there for a few months.”

“And?”

“Hated it.”

Dan’s not surprised. Erin didn’t like Paris all that much either. She just wasn’t a city person. Still isn’t, it would seem. “It’s not for everyone.” Dan says, shrugging.

Their coffee arrives and they drink in silence.

“It is, for you,” Erin says.

“Pardon.”

“London. Or anywhere that’s not here, I suppose. You couldn’t wait to get out. And now look at you, you’ve seen everything.” She doesn’t sound bitter or jealous when she says it, not that Dan expects her to be. In fact, her tone is happy, she’s grinning and he feels like it’s safe to smile back.

He tells her some things then - things that crossed his mind during tour that he figured she might like (still. It still happens). She listens, interjects with her own stories that she recalls because something he says triggers it and eventually they talk over each other and laugh, and order pastry to split between them and it’s like nine years of absence from each other’s lives just washed away.

Erin tells him about her job, she’s a manager at a huge firm in Oxford (idek) and how much she loves her life at the moment. She has a boyfriend who came with her but is at home right now, asleep. Dan mentions Phil too, and her eyes widen and she’s full of questions: _is he here, can I meet him, does he have to sleep in your small as fuck bed or is he smart and sleeps in the guestroom_?

“Okay, first of all, my bed is _not_ that small,” Dan complains and she snorts, “second of all, well, he’s with his family. Usually we do the half and half thing, but we literally spent everyday together for almost a whole year so, you know.”

“Right,” she says. “On tour. That’s great, by the way. Congrats. You on a stage, where you belong.”

He blushes. You aren’t with someone for three years without them knowing what your biggest dreams are. It’s why she was so confused about him picking law for university and slightly judging him for his reason being, ‘it brings in the money and no one just _becomes_ an actor, c’mon’. “I love it,” he says. “It’ll probably be a while before I get back on it though.”

More silence, but none of the awkwardness from before. They sit in the comfort of each other’s company and Dan has dreamed of this day. He’d hoped to someday do this, have the opportunity to tell her everything, about how even though he’s been silent for so long, he kind of knew she would be making it in her own way because that’s who she is, she goes and gets what she wants, not letting anything get in the way of that. Dan reckons he learnt it from her. He tells her so, because this is an opportunity.

They step outside and the sun has set. Dan looks at Erin again and he opens his mouth to...he doesn’t know exactly. The one thing that had been in the back of his mind was that he should apologise that he left her so devastated and then never bothered to pick back up from where they left off.

But then she speaks. “Hey, listen. I know there’s a reason this is the first time in nine years we’ve spoken properly. Not a great reason, but yeah.” Dan thinks she actually turns red? “We never established where we stand. But after today, I think we can forget about all that, right?”

Dan sighs in relief. “Yes.” He says. “Yes, we can do that. I think,” he adds, “that it’s not worth ignoring what we had, and I mean _everything_ we had just because of the way things ended.”

She nods. “Exactly. So...friends?” She extends a gloved hand out. Dan looks at it and shakes his head. She tilts her head to the side, and gasps when Dan leans forward and hugs her.

“Best friends,” Dan corrects her, feeling warmth fill him up as she hugs back and he feels the contentment course through him with the closure.  

 

**Author's Note:**

> [commissions!](https://phanwich.tumblr.com/commission)


End file.
